Life After The End
by luxlow
Summary: A look on a terrorist attack in the CBD of Sydney and how strong the human spirit is. A continuing journey through suburbia and finding out more about yourself than you ever thought.


Dawn broke as the sunlight strutted down the aisle as if it was getting married. Flowers groaned and sighed, opening their petals for humanity to gaze at their beauty. As the bastard sun's glare enveloped the suburbs of Campbelltown, its light trickled through the crimson shade curtains that protected the teenager from the bombardment of light. The teenage boy's eyes flickered momentarily as he slowly woke. The white walls of his room were colored blood red; the sad walls crying their bloodshed tears. Clothes littered on the floor and strewn across the saturated green cupboard pleaded with the boy to "pick me". The horrendous blare of automobiles vibrated through the house, echoing their momentous grunts of achievement as they move that half metre from where they were a couple of minutes ago.

The young man heaved himself from his dilapidated bed and grabbed a black top that screamed ordinary and a pair of Levi's. He could already hear his mother bustling around the kitchen, preparing revolting out-of-date coffee for her beloved husband. "Fuck off cunt!" she suddenly yells. Seemingly, the kitten that the boy brought home a couple of months ago was playing at her feet to her very verbal dismay. The teen shook his head as hoards of dust clouds fluttered out of his hair and onto the bed sheets. Pulling on his jeans, he walked out of his room into the already filthy kitchen. Dishes from last night's dinner piled over each other, fighting to be washed first as the grime on them danced around in circles singing "Oh What A Marvelous Morning to be Alive".

"You got TAFE boy?" the agitated mother asked her son. "What seriously do you expect me to be doing up so early if I didn't?" the teen retorted. The mother rolled her eyes. "Don't you talk down to me!" This, however, was a task that always happened, especially since the mother was four -foot-nine and the son being over six-foot. "You idiotic woman, that happens every time we talk. Do you want me to talk to you all the time on my knees? Because that would hurt like fuck after a while!" Shaking his head in disbelief, he strode from the house, picking up his bag from the living room before heading out, the kitten trundling along after him meowing. Bending down, he scoops the Tabby from the ground and gently ruffles its head. "Little terror. Always harassing someone." he said smiling. Letting the cat slide out of his grasp and hopping to the cement with the grace of ballerina, he picked up the cat food and poured the cheap dry Coles brand food into its grey bowl. The kitten purrs in satisfaction as the boy leaps down the veranda to the soft, dew stitched grass.

Birds sing along to each other's melody, creating a symphonic ballad of harmonious intertwining chirps. Dogs bark at the boy, guarding their master's mounds of treasure. Shadows play with each other as the soft breeze billows in the treetops. The light flickers through the leaves, creating animals and never-ending mazes to intrigue the youngest toddlers and their teenage mothers. As his sneakers fell to the ground in rhythmic step, the wind started to pick up as chimney smoke filled the air. The grey tinged air struck the teen in the face and encased his skin in a fine film of mist. As the train station loomed ahead of him, the traffic dispersed as the commuters slammed into each other trying desperately to buy their ticket first.

Tramps in their black trash bags fluttering in the wind dived after pigeons to lick the scraps of breads off the ground. Commuters ignored the beggars as they always did. The teen slowly made his way through the frolicking crowd to the boom gates that segregated those who had tickets and those who didn't. As the gates pulled back into the silver rectangular ticket register machines, the boy felt a hand on his back that pushed him through the gates. Another young teenager dressed in black from head to toe, complete with a trench coat dropped his hand and smiled at him. He watched the other boy stride away and rush back suddenly as police appeared and ran after him. The commuters stopped shoving each other to watch the boy be tackled to the ground and the ensuing events that transpired afterwards.

Carefully placing his feet on the steps that transverse the train station, the youth held his back high unlike most of the others his age. The train blared its horn as the doors opened to allow the struggling commuters onto the old battered clunker. As the speakers beside the train doors signaled the closing of them, rail user's start rushing down the stairs, frantically trying to get to the train doors before they shut tight on them. As the doors hiss shut, those who didn't scream in frustration and slam their hands on the windows, begging the guards to let them in. The commuters that got into the train puffing from the effort and smirking at those of got left behind as the train pulls out of the station.

"Hey Max." whispered a girl in the boys ear. He turned around grinning sheepishly. "Did you really think you could scare me?" Max asked in a deep sexual voice. The girl started to smile. "Do you think you're fooling anyone with such a ridiculous voice like that? Did you know that men with deep voices usually have a lower sperm count than men with normal octave voices or high pitched like yours?" she said in her sing song voice. She was wearing a simple white picnic dress with a blue cardigan. "Of course you know that little miss know-it-all. Is there anything you don't know when it comes to the opposite sex?" Max replied. "Jealous that they notice me and not you." She counted. Bantering with her was the best part of the morning to Max. "Just because you're the slag of the city doesn't mean all your friends need to be." She stared at him intently. "I know. As you tell me most days." She said laughingly. "Oh Claire, why do you always try to goad me into biting, then repeatedly lose the ensuing battle? You know that I demolish you every time." The teen asked. "Simple. It doesn't mean you're going to win tomorrow!" Both teens start laughing at that, to the displeasure of the other commuters as the ugly stares that followed them represented.

As the windowpane amplified the sunlight's angry glare, the train trickled to a stop as it hit the next station. Customers swayed back and forth, strangling the poles and seats, making sure they didn't fall over. Max watched as a man in his late thirty's, balding hair and a simple black business suit toppled over. Smirking, Max turned away from the man looking at his friend and giving her that "Do not laugh or we'll get into shit" look that he perfected during their years at high school. Detention was the second most class they attended, lunch being the first. "Just because I look like I'm going to laugh, doesn't mean I am going to." Claire said out loud. Max's face drops as the balding man glared at the teens. "What? It isn't our fault you have faulty feet!" she adds.

Grabbing her hand, Max runs through the carriage, dragging her along like a lost puppy while making sure the man isn't following. "Your mouth is seems to have sprung a leak. Again. Please fix this immediately or we both will be yelled at again by some degrading homophobic peasant." Max explained to her. "You sound like an android" She replied in a serious tone. Max rolled his eyes at her. "Is the use of inexplicably use of over-dramatic word lengths muddling your simple brain again? Because I can use simple language again if you feel necessary." Max said smiling. "Don't be all "I'm smarter than you" dumb shit. I know what you're talking about. Just because it takes me a bit longer doesn't mean I'm disabled or retarded or some shit," Claire retorted.

As the train reached Glenfield Station, Max hugged his best friend. "See you on the return!" he whispered into her ear. "You bet fag boy." She laughed back at him. "Fag boy" was a particular phrase that Claire used on a daily basis while trying to unhinge Max's verbal tenacity of using over dilated language. As the doors of the train opened, a piercing whistling noise echoed through the carriage. Max and commuters alike silently searched for the source of the incessant whizzing. A loud crack blasted vibrated through the train as a firecracker committed suicide on the other side of the City Rail fence surrounding the station.

The doors hissed shut once again as the train began to move once more. The trains speakers crackled to life as the guards voice started to inform the customers. "Good morning ladies and gentlemen. This is a City via Granville and Strathfield service stopping at…" Tuning out of the monotonous cackling voice, Max pulled his Ipod out from his Levi's pockets. "God life is boring on this train." Max muttered under his breath as he plugged his ears with his electric blue earphones. Turning the volume to maximum and sighing, he turned and looked for a seat in the soon-to-be infested with people carriage. Sitting down in a two seat block of what passed as a "travelling in comfort" bench and threw his feet up onto the other side where another passenger could sit. "Yeah, fuck them" he thought.

With the train travelling through its runs and stopping at the seemingly Asian only stops, where the new foreigners "integrate" into the Australian lifestyle or what Max's father said, it slowly filled to the brim with an overflow of rail users. The once silent train was now full of loud and incredulous humans eating foul smelling food that made Max's stomach threaten to expel its content. "Excuse me, but could ya take ya feet off da seat so I can sit"? The voice drifted through the earphones as Max swung himself to sit front-on. The twenty something year-old man crookedly smiled at him. Max's face dropped to a "are you shitting me?" face that the internet had made ever so popular with its "meme". The man in question smelt worse than the ramshackle houses that the people of Campbelltown called "home" or the government indeed called a "house" in general. The stench of homelessness and rotten food fluttered around the train, lingering like a fly's near dog shit. Holding his breathe, Max stood suddenly and pushed his way past the rag-tagged man. Sucking in a deep breath and exhaling as the doors once again opened, he ran out of the train and vomited in the proverbial tiny trash cans that usually flooded with litter, cascaded the trash around the stations giving the sense of uncleanliness.

Wiping the excess spittle from the corners of his mouth with the sleeve of his jumper, Max heard a voice carry across from the train. "Woo! Sexy!" Turning bright red with anger he turned to the rough location of the voice. "Go fuck yourself cunt!" he screamed and immediately regretted it. Turning on his heel as the hulking guy that yelled the sarcastic comment stepped off the train and roared "What you say, you little prick!" Running up the stairs with the grace of fish floundering out of water, Max looked back and noticed the man had stopped running. "I love that fat people can't run." He said smiling to himself.


End file.
